All people: God is the God of all, and has made all creatures to search for God. As we know God in Christ, we, with “gentleness and reverence,” invite people to know the God who made and loves them.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year A
Texts: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Pandemic.

It’s a word we’re sick of, it gives us fear and anxiety and grief and anger.

It’s Greek. “Pan-demos.” Meaning, “all people”. When the World Health Organization recognizes that a significant number of the world’s countries and population are at risk of a particular disease, they declare it a pandemic. “All people” are at risk of suffering. “All people” should take care.

“All people” divides our national response to this crisis. Our national government has a significant number of leaders, including the president, who don’t care about “all people” in the U.S., let alone the world. Many decisions made at the highest level intend to help only a small group of people, disregarding “all people,” the people who will actually get sick, suffer, and potentially die because of those selfish decisions.

But the word pandemic isn’t by itself a bad word. It’s an adjective, it describes something else. A pandemic disease is terrible, a horror we pray will be brought under control, and soon. But even saying “all people” are suffering from this crisis claims we are all together in this as one on this planet. That’s a really good thing.

And what if we modify other words and thoughts with the word “pandemic”? Learn a “pandemic” way of thinking and being that always begins with “all people,” not with our own personal wants, or our own country’s wants? A pandemic lens for thinking and being would see all people as our siblings, all people as ones who matter, no people as our enemies. This would be a huge blessing.

The honest truth, though, is we Christians often lead the call for an exclusive lens of thinking and being, not one that embraces all people.

We take words like Jesus’ in today’s Gospel and turn them from encouragement for his disciples into words excluding anyone who doesn’t believe as we do. The Church as the exclusive place of those God loves has been a tremendously sinful idea for much of our history. It’s led to much destruction and death, often at our hands.

But if we were to really understand Jesus, we’d see the risen Christ’s desire is that not a single creature be left orphaned, alone, not just us. Yes, here he says his followers will encounter a world which doesn’t see the Spirit of truth at work, doesn’t trust Jesus is the Christ. That’s helpful awareness.

But throughout his preaching and teaching, Jesus is clear that God’s love in Christ is for “all people,” a pandemic love, a love even for the whole cosmos. All things will be drawn into God as Jesus is lifted up on the cross. None of God’s children will be left orphaned. All people will be brought into the abundant life God has made in the world in Christ.

Listen to what we prayed at the start of worship today: “Almighty and ever-living God, you hold together all things in heaven and on earth. In your great mercy receive the prayers of all your children, and give to all the world the Spirit of your truth and peace, through Jesus Christ.”

We have made it clear to the Holy and Triune God today that we recognize God is a pandemic God, God for all people. Now, how will we live in a way consistent with our prayer?

The apostle Paul, on the Areopagus in Athens, declares a beautiful vision of such a pandemic God.

A few verses earlier, Paul is distressed when walking around Athens and seeing all the temples to idols. But when the Athenians invite Paul to speak, he does something remarkable.

He speaks graciously about the Athenians’ religiosity, that they clearly care about faith and prayer, to have all those temples. Then he speaks of their temple “to an unknown God” and proclaims a welcoming vision of God’s love for them and for all.

God is not confined to these temples and shrines we build, Paul says. This God the Athenians call “unknown” is actually the God of the universe, maker of all things and all creatures. Every human being derives from the creation of this God, Paul says. And remarkably, this unknown God of whom Paul speaks actually wants all people to search for and find God. To grope until they touch God.

God, in this pandemic love, longs to live inside each of God’s children. All are God’s offspring, even these Athenians, all are loved by the God Paul proclaims, who raised Jesus from the dead.

This is the heart of Jesus’ teaching, that God has come in Christ for all, and Paul invites the Athenians to know that God, too.

Today Peter says, “Always be ready to make an explanation to those who ask for an accounting of the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” Here, Paul’s speech is a direct result of the Athenians asking Paul to say more about what he believes, what he hopes.

And Paul’s speech models the gentleness and reverence Peter asks for, too. Paul listens to and observes the Athenians, their culture, their faith. He walks around the city and gets a feel for who they are. Then, when asked, he proclaims the good news of God in Christ in a way that opens God’s love for all people.

Peter and Paul show us our path of living faithfully in trust of our pandemic God.

First, your life will be visibly different enough that people actually demand from you an explanation of your hope, your faith. Does your love of others witness to your world? Can people see your hope in God’s love for all people enough that they might dare to ask you about it? Even in this time apart, each of us have opportunities to witness by our kindness, our love, our hope, our politics, that God is a pandemic God who loves and heals all.

Imagine what our country and world would be like if everyone who belonged to Christ were beacons of hope and love to their families and friends, acted as if all people matter to God and to them, and showed this in public, and on social media, so much so that people asked, “where do you find that?”

And when you engage others who don’t believe as you, when you’re talking about the hope that is in you, follow Paul and listen first. Observe their lives, their faithfulness. Even if it distresses you, like Paul, set that aside and pay attention. Then, when you do speak from your hope, the gentleness and reverence will naturally be there. It will come out graciously and will invite people to know the God who made them and desires to be touched by them. To live in them.

It is the Triune God’s deep desire that all God’s children find home and abundant life in God here.

None of God’s children can be left orphaned, alone, with no one and no God to love them. In Christ’s death and resurrection, God’s life and love have begun the transformation of this world, for all people, pan demos.

It sounds simple, that you could live with this hope and actually witness by your life and your reverent, gentle words, that all people are a part of God’s love. But it is how God’s love for all people will finally get to all people. It’s how God’s healing can even start changing our society and world to be one where all people are always considered and cared for.

Because our pandemic God wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Way, truth, life: these are not abstract concepts but the embodied Christ in your lives, and also how the Triune God lives embodied in you.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: John 14:1-14

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“I am.”

That was Jesus’ answer to Thomas and to Philip. “I am.” He didn’t explain or teach them anything. He simply said, “I am what you are asking.”

Thomas wanted a map to where Jesus was going, the place with God. He wanted to know the way there.

“I am the way,” Jesus said. “And the truth. And the life.”

Philip wanted to see God for himself, the one Jesus called “Father,” to whom Jesus said he was returning. He thought if Jesus just showed them what he was talking about it would help.

“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God,” Jesus said.

We reduce “the way, the truth, and the life” to theological concepts to understand and discuss. We talk about God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit, as if the Triune God were an object to be studied, dissected, understood. But the Incarnate God-with-us points us in a completely different direction. “I am,” is what Jesus says.

I am the way, Jesus says.

The way of Christ, which Jesus often speaks of, is a way shaped like a cross, a way of vulnerable, sacrificial love. But it is not a way that can be laid out, mapped, with instructions, a list of actions you do. That’s the way the world works, but as poet W. H. Auden says, Jesus is a Way “through the land of Unlikeness.”¹ Jesus doesn’t have a book called “The Ten Steps to Faithfully Follow My Way.” Jesus says, “I am the Way.”

The way of Christ begins and ends with looking at Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God. Jesus is a way of living, a way of loving, a way of relating to God and to neighbor. So you can’t know the Way until you live in the One who is the Way.

Poet and priest George Herbert describes Jesus the Way as “such a Way as gives us breath.”² In your breathing-in Christ’s love and grace you begin to live Christ’s love and grace. You become vulnerable in your love because God is vulnerable in God’s love, and you’re breathing that vulnerability in, becoming what you already are in Christ. Love of God and love of neighbor then flows from you.

I am the Truth, Jesus says.

Jesus didn’t teach an abstract concept called Truth. He said knowing the Truth would set his followers free. And then he said, “I am the Truth.” I am what you seek.

Jesus embodies the Truth that God loves humanity deeply enough to join our life. All God’s true intention for the creation is known in Jesus, God in our own human flesh and blood, skin and bones. Every breath Jesus takes is God’s breath breathing in our life, and saying, “this is good, I love this.”

To know God’s Truth is not to have a fact to fight over, a possession saying you’re right and I’m wrong. To know God’s Truth is to know, in person, Jesus, the Truth of God’s love for you and for the world, who is real and alive and with you.

And this Truth is, as Herbert so beautifully says, “such a Truth as ends all strife.” When you live in the One who is God’s Truth there’s nothing to fight over. Instead you find, as Auden says, in the midst of the “Kingdom of Anxiety” in which we live, the home you’ve been looking for your whole life. A home of Truth that God is embodied in you and in all creatures.

I am the Life, Jesus says.

Last week Jesus said he wanted all God’s children to “have life, and have it abundantly.”

Now he says, “I am that Life.” To breathe in and become Christ’s Way, to imagine the Truth that your very life and body are beloved by God and inhabited by God, is to finally know true life.

“Such a Life as killeth death,” Herbert wrote. And not just death at the end of our mortal lives, though Jesus certainly promises that in this part of John’s Gospel. Jesus the Life kills death in all its forms, whether fear of a global pandemic that confines us to homes while sending others into deep danger, or any fear and anxiety that threaten us. Jesus deeply wishes for you to know him as Life now. Abundantly. In this “World of the Flesh,” as Auden puts it. Because death has no power over you even in this world.

I am, Jesus says. I am for you and I am for this world.

This is a wonderful gift in this terrible time of crisis, where every day we wake up to news that is worse, where we still haven’t reached the peak of this wave, where we don’t know how any of this will look when it settles down, and even when that might begin to happen.

Nothing can separate you from the love of God in the One who is your Way, your Truth, and your Life. Because now you live in “I Am” yourself. You embody Christ’s Way, Christ’s Truth, and so you know Christ’s Life. And your God-embodied life and love now say to your world, “I am. And you can be, too.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ This, and subsequent Auden quotes: W. H. Auden, For the Time Being – A Christmas Oratorio, part 8, “The Flight into Egypt: IV: Chorus; in W. H. Auden Collected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson; copyright 2007 The Modern Library, New York; page 400. Set as a hymn in Hymnal 1982, Episcopal Church U.S.A., hymn 464.

² This, and subsequent Herbert quotes: George Herbert, The Call, stanza 1; in George Herbert – the Complete English Works, ed. Ann Pasternak Slater; copyright 1995 Everyman’s Library, Alfred P. Knopf, New York; p. 153. Set as a hymn in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tune, hymn 816.

As we learn to be community in new ways during physical distancing, we can look to the example of the early church who cultivated community amidst the uncertainty following Jesus’ death by trusting God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Fourth Sunday of Easter, year A
Texts: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; John 10:1-10

Beloved in Christ, may the love of God be with you this day and all days. Amen.

Have you seen any chalk messages around your neighborhood?

You might have spotted some out your window or on an evening walk on your block. It’s become a trend during the pandemic. Sidewalks are covered in rainbow-colored chalk messages that say things like: “We’re all in this together” or “Don’t be afraid” or “This too shall pass.” My favorite one I saw recently said, “I can’t wait to hug you.”

The chalk trend is a sweet way to cheer one another up in difficult times, but it’s also deeper than that. It’s a philosophy of community. The messages remind us that although we are physically distancing, we are not socially distancing. We are coming together by staying apart. We are taking care of, and being cared for, by strangers we’ll never even meet.

Even once the stay-at-home orders are lifted, this practice of physical distance is going to be with us for a long time, as we continue to cope with the coronavirus. We will need these reminders that the distance is actually a form of community. We’ll need these reminders on our sidewalks, in our conversations, in our prayers. This is what love of neighbor looks like right now. This is a new way to be community together.

This Easter season we’ve been reading in the book of Acts how the early church discerned what it meant to be community together in a new way.

Things were changing for them, and they were facing a lot of uncertainty as they struggled to understand Jesus’ death and resurrection. How would they know how to move forward in the absence of their teacher and leader?

What we read in Acts is that they learned to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus was not physically with them any longer, the Holy Spirit moved among them and within them. That Spirit was a gift of Christ’s ongoing presence, poured out on the disciples.

But the apostle Peter says it goes further than that. Peter told the crowds that came to hear him: the promise of the Holy Spirit is for you, and for your children, and for those who are far away. The Holy Spirit is a gift for everyone to whom God calls! (Acts 2:39) The Spirit is not constrained by time or place. It’s not exclusive or limited; it’s abundant and generous. The disciples navigated the uncertainty after Jesus’ death because they trusted that abundant Spirit, which Jesus had promised would continue to guide them.

Through this faithful group of Christ-followers, God drew more and more people in, and they cultivated community together.

In Acts, we hear how radical the vision of togetherness was for these believers. They worshipped together daily and shared meals. They supported one another socially, spiritually, and economically. They accounted for every person’s needs. They shared everything.

Loving one another in this way sounds unrealistic in the midst of a pandemic, when you can’t be together and have all things in common. You can’t share meals and worship. You can’t even share handshakes and hugs. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be Christ-centered community.

You can care for the needs of others. You can support one another socially, spiritually, and economically. You can praise God with glad and generous hearts, study God’s word, and pray in your home, as Acts tells us the early church did. You are doing all of those things, and God is still working through you every single day. The Spirit is still speaking to you as you navigate how to be community in the midst of these circumstances.

When Jesus talked about how the community of believers should depend on God for guidance, he often used the image of a flock of sheep being led by a shepherd.

We heard this in our Gospel reading from John today. The shepherd leads the sheep by voice, calling to them and guiding them. The sheep can’t see all that well, but they can listen. They recognize and follow the voice of their shepherd. And they know to run away from other voices that might try to persuade them down a different path.

Following the voice of the shepherd can’t keep the sheep from all harm. They can’t huddle in the safety of the sheepfold forever. At some point, they need to go out and find pasture where they can eat, and they trust the shepherd to lead them there, to the green pastures and the still waters. (Psalm 23:2)

When you imagine yourself as one of God’s flock, navigating the dangers of the world, you might experience God as the shepherd who calls to you and leads you to the good fields. You might experience God as the gate that welcomes you back in to a place of safety. You might experience God as the gatekeeper who protects you while you rest, keeping out anything that would harm you. Jesus uses all of these different images to help people understand the ways that God cares for them.

And if all those metaphors confuse you, and you’re asking how God can be a shepherd, a gate, and a gatekeeper, know that you’re not alone. After all, the disciples themselves admitted that they weren’t sure what Jesus was talking about. So he gave them the bottom line.

Jesus says what matters is this: God wants life for you.

And not just the kind of life that’s sufficient or good enough. God wants the kind of life for you that’s abundant, like a cup running over, flooded with blessing. (Psalm 23:5) God wants this for you, and for the people you’re isolated with, and for the people you miss and want to hug, and for the people you’ve never even met. Even when it feels like you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, you are not alone in this. The whole flock surrounds you and the good shepherd leads you.

Keep listening for the voice that speaks abundant life to you. Keep listening for the voice that calls you into courageous love for the world. Keep listening.

Amen.

We are still on the road to Emmaus, seeking open eyes and open Scriptures, walking with Christ who opens both for us and accompanies us with life and hope.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: Luke 24:13-35

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

This couple from Emmaus was on the road and having a really hard time of it.

All their hopes for the redemption of their people were dashed, because Jesus, the one they thought was God’s Anointed to save Israel, had just been brutally killed. Everything they understood about what God was doing in Jesus was turned upside down. And their hearts were broken in grief over what had happened to their beloved friend and teacher.

But this long walk of seven miles transformed them. On that journey they met a stranger who both opened the Scriptures to them and opened their eyes. By the time they got home, they’d found new hope, new understanding, and even comfort and healing for their grief.

Two things are notable: first, they couldn’t return to where they were before. Not meaning Jerusalem, they went back there that very night. But they couldn’t return to how they understood Jesus, and what God was doing, before all this happened. They would need a new way of seeing and understanding.

The second thing is that for most of this story, they’re still on the road to Emmaus, they haven’t arrived at their destination. Maybe not even by the end.

Right now, we’re still on the road to Emmaus, too.

This pandemic, and all the accompanying anxiety and fear, the tragic deaths, the concern over whether our national government will coordinate any useful plan to mitigate this crisis, our worry over how long it will last and whether it’ll come back, all of this has permanently changed the world we know.

Just as this couple had their whole world upended and destroyed seeing Jesus crucified, our whole world as we thought we knew it has ended. Whatever we come to know as normal will be different. We can’t return to where we were.

So right now, as people of faith, we’re not where we’re going yet. We don’t yet understand what’s happened, we don’t fully understand what God is doing in this. We’re grieving the loss of friends and so many around this world, grieving the loss of our expected future.

We need to have the Scriptures opened to us, just like these two.

We long for the teaching Jesus gave this Emmaus couple, helping them understand what God was doing in this death and resurrection, and what it meant for the world. We need Christ to walk alongside us as a community of faith and open the Scriptures and the tradition to us. We need to listen together for when our hearts burn within us with Pentecost fire as God’s Word speaks to us.

So: we need to walk together on this shared road, read Scripture together, pray together. Listen for the Spirit of God – the gift of the risen Christ – to open God’s Word to us and lead us to understanding and hope. To help us understand what Jesus means saying “it was necessary” for God’s Messiah to suffer this. What it means that God willingly enters our suffering and takes it into God’s own life. What it means that Christ is risen in the midst of this suffering and death that is changing everything.

We need our eyes opened to see Christ, too, just as they did.

Like them, we have come to know Christ in the breaking of the bread. When we gather for Eucharist we know Christ is with us, and as we share it between each person we have learned to recognize Christ’s Body, see Christ’s face in each other. Though right now we can’t worship together and share this Meal, we still need to have the Spirit open our eyes to see Christ in our world and in each other.

To remember that Christ is incarnate in every child of God on this planet, and that to see a neighbor in need is to see our beloved, risen Christ. To be able to see those who are most affected by this pandemic and recognize the deep injustice upon injustice that those who earn the least, who struggle the most with poverty and other wants, are also those most deeply harmed. To see Christ’s face in their faces and hear the call to serve them as Christ.

So: we need to walk together on this shared road, and, with the Spirit’s guidance, help each other see Christ. Because if everything is going to be different going forward, we need to see that new reality with eyes that can see Christ in this world. So as we pray and vote and engage and serve we always know we’re in Christ’s presence, on holy ground, in our love of neighbor.

There’s an ancient Latin saying that is normative for my faith journey.

The phrase is “solvitur ambulando,” which means, “It is solved by walking.” It is in the journey that we find our answers. This road we walk together is where we will understand God’s solution, find God’s guidance, know God’s healing of all this grief and pain, be filled with God’s hope for our future as a community of faith and as a city, nation, and world.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, in The Fellowship of the Ring, “Not all who wander are lost.”¹ Martin Luther said regarding the life of the baptized, “We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; this is not the end, but it is the right road.”² Just because we’re living our lives on the road and not at our destination doesn’t mean we’re lost, or that we’re not in God’s hands.

It’s the opposite. The invitation of our Christian faith is to walk our roads to Emmaus together, and know that as we walk, we will learn, grow. Our eyes will be opened as God’s Word is opened to us.

Because remember: we don’t walk this road alone.

The Triune God in Christ is always walking alongside us, even if sometimes we can’t see it. Yes, we’re often foolish and slow of heart to trust God, as Jesus points out today. But Christ still makes the journey with us, opening Scripture to us, opening our eyes. Opening our hearts to know and trust God’s suffering in this world’s suffering, God’s Easter life in our lives.

And so we walk together. It’s a grace-filled road we share.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1, chapter 10; page 182 in the second edition, copyright ©1965, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

² Martin Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” a response from March 1521 to Exsurge Domine, the papal bull of condemnation of his writings issued by Pope Leo X in July, 1520. Luther’s Works, vol. 32, The Career of the Reformer II, p. 24. Translation from Michael Podesta.

Whenever you miss Easter, for whatever reason, Jesus always comes to where you are, calls you to life, and sends you out.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: John 20:19-31 (with references to 1-18 and chapter 21)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Mary Magdalene missed Easter. The tomb was open and empty when she got there.

She didn’t know where else to go in her confusion and despair at Jesus’ death. So even before it dawned after the Sabbath, she was at the tomb.

Her confusion and despair only deepened at the ominous emptiness she found: an open tomb, Jesus gone. She ran to the others and told them, came back, and then stood there confused, alone, sad. She had no idea what to do next.

Then she heard her name. The voice of her beloved friend and teacher said, “Mary.” Jesus came to her where she was. And then Mary knew Easter. Then she knew resurrection life.

The other disciples missed Easter. Some didn’t come. Others came, and left.

Apart from the women, the rest of the disciples were locked away in fear. Fear that, since Jesus was dead, they had nothing to live for. Fear they might be next in line for arrest and death. Peter and John heard Mary’s frightening news about the empty tomb, ran to it, looked in. Then they went back and re-locked the door.

And then they saw Jesus. Jesus came to them where they were, locked away, and breathed peace on all of them, men and women. Then they knew Easter. Then they knew resurrection life.

Thomas really missed Easter.

He wasn’t at the tomb Sunday morning or the Upper Room Sunday night. He missed it all.

His doubts were legitimate. He wasn’t going to raise his hopes just because the others thought they saw Jesus or had an experience he dearly wished he’d had. He didn’t dare hope again without something he could touch and see and know himself.

Then Thomas saw Jesus. Jesus came to him where he was, took his hand and drew it to his side saying, “touch me, Thomas. Know for yourself.” And then Thomas knew Easter. Then he knew resurrection life.

Well, we just missed Easter.

We worshipped where we were, sang along, prayed, heard each other proclaim that Christ is risen indeed. It was a blessed gift in our time of separation, our staying at home for our own safety and the safety of our neighbors. But for many of us, myself included, we could not remember another Holy Week in our entire lives where we weren’t at church, an Easter Day when we stayed at home. I can’t begin to tell you how I missed seeing you all, being with you.

We were closed up in our homes, worried about loved ones who are ill, anxious about ourselves. Despairing at the breadth of this plague on this planet. As locked away as the disciples, as confused and afraid as Mary and Thomas, we missed Easter together.

But listen, dear one. Do you hear? In your disappointment and sadness, Jesus comes to you where you are and calls your name. You are known, beloved, God’s dear child, wet with baptismal water, and Christ is calling your name. So you can know Easter. So you can know resurrection life.

If you miss Easter for any fears that lock you away, Jesus will come to you.

You fear being hurt, so you lock your heart away from others. You fear threats that fill this world, so you hide behind your garage door and your locked front door, and don’t engage. You fear the sacrifices it might take to follow Christ, so you lock away your mind and imagination so you don’t think about it. You have no idea what Easter could do to change this.

Look, dear one. Do you see? Jesus comes through all your locks and breathes God’s Spirit of peace into you. You are filled with God’s love and forgiveness, and that takes away your fear. There is no place you can lock yourself away that Christ can’t come in and say, “Peace be with you.”

This is what resurrection life means in your life. The risen Jesus always comes to you where you are. The Spirit is breathed into you, and you don’t need to be afraid, or lock yourself away again. You can risk love, risk witness, risk reaching out. Risk life.

If you miss Easter because your doubts feel so strong you can’t get around them, Jesus will come to you.

Doubt is part of faith. But what if it seems like all you have are doubts? There’s so much death and destruction in our world, does what happened on that Sunday morning long ago really matter, change anything? Is there really life in Christ for the world? For you? If only you could touch Jesus and know for sure.

But look at around at this community of faith, dear one, these loved ones who walk alongside you in Christ, even at a distance these days. Jesus has come to you where you are, and says, “These ones, they are me. For you. In them, you can touch my wounded hands and feet and side, and trust me.”

Don’t fret if sometimes you feel you’ve missed Easter.

Jesus will always come to where you are and call you by name, breathe peace into you, take you by the hand. So you can know the resurrection life that lies on the Christ path of vulnerable, sacrificial love. So you can have Easter.

And then Christ sends you to take it into the world. Mary was sent to be an apostle, to tell the others the good news. All the disciples in the Upper Room, men and women (even Thomas), Spirit-breathed, were sent to forgive, to love, to feed Christ’s sheep.

You are sent with resurrection life in you, as Christ, to others who’ve missed Easter, to be with them where they are, even as others have been with you as Christ.

To tell them they are loved and known by name to the Triune God. To offer peace and hope to those who’ve locked themselves away. To reach out and embrace those who struggle in doubt. To be life for those who are facing death’s touch. To bear this life as Christ did, for the healing of the world.

So everyone can have Easter.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen